[Push-ups +1. Current count: 99] [Push-ups +1. Current count: 100] [Ding! Today's push-up plan is complete.]
The moment the system notification sounded, Chen Feng collapsed onto the training ground. Pain, weakness, and cramps hit him all at once, nearly knocking him unconscious.
Fatty, who had just finished eating, stared. "Holy crap, we've got an athlete in our dorm."
Li Guolong asked with concern, "Are you done?"
If only I were.
Just thinking about the hundred sit-ups and squats still ahead gave Chen Feng a splitting headache.
Then the system's warning sounded in his ear again:
[Host's training progress is too slow...]
"Sorry! I'll get right to it!"
Right in front of Li Guolong and the others, Chen Feng spread his feet, stretched out his arms, and squatted.
Fatty pointed toward the Public Toilet on the first floor. "What are you doing? If you need to take a dump, go outside."
Chen Feng said nothing. He just stood up, squatted down, stood up, squatted down.
Li Guolong caught on. "Squats?"
Fatty whispered to Yellow Hair, "I've figured it out. This guy went to a vet when he had a fever as a kid, and it fried his brain."
Yellow Hair saw it differently. "What do you know? At his current level, he definitely can't beat Professor Sheep, the boss. That's why he's training so hard to level up. Get it now?"
Fatty looked at Yellow Hair like he was an idiot. "Yeah. I get it. You two went to the same vet."
After the squats came sit-ups.
Chen Feng lay on the bed with his legs together and his arms raised, rocking up and down until the whole Metal Bunk Bed creaked. He finally finished every exercise before midnight.
"It hurts. I'm so sore. I'm not getting rhabdomyolysis, am I?"
Chen Feng had heard of rhabdomyolysis. Some people pushed their muscles beyond what they could take, suffered acute kidney damage, and dropped dead.
"At this rate, I'm going to drop dead too. This Proficiency System is such bullshit."
[Ding! Today's training has been completed successfully.] [If you suck, train harder.] [Your physical constitution has permanently increased.]
As the system's voice faded, Chen Feng felt strength welling up throughout his body. The exhaustion from overexertion vanished without a trace.
This actually feels pretty great!
Chen Feng smiled from the bottom of his heart. A tremendous sense of accomplishment rose in him: he had beaten his own limits.
Who said the Proficiency System was bad? It's fantastic!
The other three were getting ready for bed. When they heard him laugh, they all suspected he had trained so hard he had scrambled his brains.
Over the next week, a busy figure became a regular sight around the Academy.
"Yellow Hair, I bet he won't last three days."
"Fatty, it's been three days."
"I underestimated him. But there's no way he'll last a week."
"Fatty, he's lasted a week."
"Holy crap, he actually kept it up? What a man. If he called me a woman, I'd buy a pack of sanitary pads and slap one on right away."
The truth was, when it came to training,
Chen Feng had wanted no part of it at first.
But as his physical stats kept rising, the feeling of transforming from a shut-in into someone strong, step by step, became addictive.
On the seventh day,
Chen Feng was sweating buckets on the training ground.
[Push-ups +1. Current count: 73] [Push-ups +1. Current count: 74]
Li Guolong and the other two crept over. Seeing no one else around, he said solemnly, "We need to talk about the real plan."
Here it comes!
Chen Feng perked up. "We're making our move tomorrow?"
Li Guolong nodded. "Yes."
Yellow Hair spread out a map. "In game terms, clearing the Fourth Mental Hospital takes three things: stealing the key to the training ground from the Professor's Office, defeating the Pig Instructor guarding the main gate, and getting past the Imposter Model Students who patrol at night."
Fatty cut in. "Yellow Hair, you're usually full of crap, but explaining our escape plan like it's a game actually makes it sound pretty convincing."
Li Guolong handed Chen Feng a key. "Brother Feng, this is the office key. As we agreed, you'll go to the office. Leave the security room to us."
After a moment's thought, Li Guolong added, "Remember, we have to move tomorrow night."
Chen Feng nodded.
Li Guolong couldn't help asking, "Aren't you going to ask why it has to be tomorrow night?"
Because the professor won't be there tomorrow, obviously.
Chen Feng asked anyway, "Why?"
Li Guolong said, "Because every year at the end of July, the professor disappears for half a day. That's why we have to wait until tomorrow."
Chen Feng was stunned. "Every year? How long have you been trapped here?"
This damn place assimilated people. How strong would someone's will have to be to spend a year here without becoming a Model Student?
Li Guolong waved a hand. "Not me. It was a senior named Chen Xinran. They say she's the only student who ever escaped the Academy. She secretly left this map and the office key in a notebook, too."
At this point, Li Guolong looked a little embarrassed. "Fatty, Yellow Hair, and I have only been at the Academy for six months, so we can't be sure the professor will leave that day. If you don't want to take the risk, we can swap jobs."
"No, we can't!"
Fatty immediately panicked. "If the professor doesn't leave, he'll zap us until we're walking lightning rods."
No. The professor will definitely leave.
A sharp glint flashed in Chen Feng's eyes. He knew their previous escape attempt had failed, so something in the plan had to go wrong.
But he was certain the key wasn't the problem.
Chen Feng recalled something from the loop when he had obtained the Ghost-Catching System. Tired of Old Li's stories, he had listened to the radio in the car for a while.
He remembered one news report perfectly.
The annual youth mental health briefing would be held at nine in the morning at the end of the month, with a prominent local professor in the field of mental health invited to attend!
He had no idea how the professor planned to attend a meeting with a goat's head, but one fact had already been confirmed: the professor would leave the Academy tomorrow night and wouldn't return until the following afternoon.
That meant the problem had to be the Pig Instructor.
Chen Feng asked the three of them, "How are you planning to deal with the Pig Instructor?"
Li Guolong told him the Pig Instructor loved drinking and eating meat. All they needed to do tomorrow was bring him some good wine and get him drunk.
Chen Feng was curious. "You have good wine?"
Fatty nodded. "Yeah. Borrowed it from the cafeteria kitchen."
Borrowed? More like stole it.
Chen Feng glanced at Fatty. Now he understood how the guy had spent six months here and was still so fat.
"That takes care of the elite Drill Instructor and the miniboss professor," Yellow Hair said. "As for the Imposter mobs, we should be fine as long as we're careful."
Fine... would they really be?
Chen Feng narrowed his eyes.
From what he remembered of the last time, the Pig Instructor had been groggy that afternoon, so they had probably gotten him drunk. And with Professor Sheep gone, they should have been able to steal the key.
Yet Fatty and Yellow Hair had still been caught and brought back.
So the Imposter patrol must have been where things went wrong.
Yellow Hair might jokingly call the Imposters mobs, but Chen Feng had dealt with them. Once an Imposter went berserk, several adults couldn't hold one down.
But it's different this time. They have me.
"Ninety-nine."
"One hundred."
When Chen Feng finished his hundredth push-up, a system notification sounded in his mind.
[Congratulations! Through hard work, you have completed the C-rank Hero Training plan.] [Host's physical strength has reached Brick-Burst Level.] [Unlocking the subsequent B-, A-, and S-rank plans requires 1, 10, and 100 Points respectively.] [Warning: Host's Imposter transformation has reached 50%. Once transformation is complete, training will be interrupted and fail, and spent Points will not be refunded. Please find a safer area.]
"I can't keep training. If I do, I'll turn into an Imposter."
Chen Feng picked up a brick from the ground and squeezed it casually. It crumbled like tofu beneath his fingers, turning into a pile of powder.
"Brick-Burst Level really is terrifying!"
Chen Feng's eyes shone. Splitting a brick with a knife-hand strike and crushing one into powder with a squeeze were two different things. Some street performers could manage the former. The latter was already beyond human limits.
What kind of bullshit Imposter could take one punch from me?
Before you continue